MOCA Making Cable Networking a Reality

Now, just one year after the Multimedia Over Coax Alliance announced (at CES 2005) plans to develop and certify products that use in-home coaxial cables to network home entertainment devices, the alliance is showing the technology in practice and the first products to actually use the technology.

The MOCA concept is simple and, for some consumers, particularly alluring. It relies not on new wiring, but existing and sometime pervasive coaxial cable wiring in homes to deliver high-definition content from PC to room and offer live 100-megabit network connections wherever coaxial cable connections exist in the home.

Eric Buffkin demonstrated Motorola's new high-definition, MOCA ready QTP6416 DVR, which was announced just days ago, and how, while it has an Ethernet port, was actually receiving an IP-based high-def video from a video server connected to the DVR over a standard coax line. There was also a Linksys cable networking router that, while not yet available to end users, can take a standard WAN connection in and output network connectivity to several coax lines.

The MOCA group expects to being the product certification process within the next few months and consumers should soon see coax networking products, like Actiontec's M1424WR home gateway, in retail stores and from service providers like Verizon, DiSH networks and others.

A 25-year industry veteran and award-winning journalist, Lance Ulanoff is the former Editor in Chief of PCMag.com.
Lance Ulanoff has covered technology since PCs were the size of suitcases, ?on line? meant ?waiting? and CPU speeds were measured in single-digit megahertz. He?s traveled the globe to report on a vast array of consumer and business technology.
While a digital veteran, Lance spent his early years writing for newspapers and magazines. He?s been online since 1996 and ran Web sites for three national publications: HomePC, Windows Magazine...
More »

Automatic Renewal Program: Your subscription will continue without interruption for as long as you wish, unless
you instruct us otherwise. Your subscription will automatically renew at the end of the term unless you authorize
cancellation. Each year, you'll receive a notice and you authorize that your credit/debit card will be charged the
annual subscription rate(s). You may cancel at any time during your subscription and receive a full refund on all
unsent issues. If your credit/debit card or other billing method can not be charged, we will bill you directly instead. Contact Customer Service